Posts Tagged 'West Texas A&M University'

The first step in any trip is getting to your destination. This can take as little as an hour, or up to a whole day. Unfortunately, the trip to Scotland was one that would take a whole day.

We all met at the airport before sunrise on Sunday morning because our flight left at 6:30am. It was the first leg of our journey, and gave us the greatest challenge of the day since the woman checking our passports didn’t quite know what she was doing (perhaps she hadn’t slept at all the night before either). Although we showed up two hours early, it was a slight rush to get everyone though security and to the plane on time. Thankfully all 26 of us made it through and were ready to get on the first of three flights!

The first plane that we flew on was the smallest I had ever ridden on, with only fifty seats total on the flight. A lot of people chose this time to sleep (a good idea since many had, like me, pulled an all-nighter). I was still too excited about the trip to force myself to go to sleep, so I choose to read on the plane instead. I took out a Scottish romance novel (that had been given to me as a gag gift for the trip) and read to set the mood and feel of Scotland.

We landed in Houston, Texas after a short flight. We had a lot of time to kill in the airport before our next flight took off and all needed a way to entertain ourselves. That is when the UNO cards came out and we had a couple of epic games there right in front of our gate. Sadly I didn’t win any of the rounds, but it was a great way to pass the time with fellow classmates and our own faculty members. It kept us busy until we boarded the next flight for the second stage of our journey.

Finally we arrived in Newark, New Jersey. That was the furthest east I had ever been in my life! (Though that would change in just a few hours as we flew across the Atlantic Ocean.) The Newark airport was nice, but we were all reaching the end of excitement rush from earlier in the morning. After a nice walk around the airport, and a little yoga to stretch our tired bodies, we were able to sit and wait a few hours for our next plane. Finally we were on the last plane and on our way over the Atlantic towards Scotland!

By this time it was 9:00 at night, and we all laid back in our seats to try and get a little shut eye before landing in Scotland. It wasn’t easy to sleep on the plane, and many of us were reaching that moment of sleep deprivation where everything becomes funny. The traveling was the most tiring part, but it all became worth it once the plane landed in Scotland. We had finally made it!

I recently returned from a travel abroad experience in Scotland and England. The ten days I spent overseas were truly inspiring and life-changing time. It is an experience that all students should try and obtain. I was able to go thanks to WTAMU and the Honor’s Program. Each semester the Honor’s Program offers seminar classes (required if you are an Honor’s Student) and often one of these classes involves travel either to a location inside or outside of the United States. Thanks to the University and Donors of the Honor’s Program, the trips are affordable to students who may otherwise not be able to afford.

It was always my dream to travel to England, but I never thought it would become a reality until now. It was a jam-packed trip, with a different activity happening at every second. Friendships were made and deepened, culture was explored, streets were explored, and feet got sore on this trip. Every bit of it was worth it. I will spend the next few week talking about the trip, so look forward to more!

This summer will be the first time that I will be taking summer classes. There are a lot of perks to taking summer classes such as:

They help you get ahead in school

They give you something to do for the summer

You are able to get though a class in a short amount of time

You can sometimes take summer classes at a community college and transfer the credits

Summer classes often offer basic classes that you may have missed in your first years of college

Despite all of these perks, I have always chosen to avoid taking intercession or summer classes. I had no desire to take a fast track though college, and I often used the summer time to travel to see family and friends. Summer has always been my chance to sit back, relax, and not worry about school too much.

This summer is going to be different.

This summer I will be taking a drawing course that relates to my major. I was very hesitant toward taking this class at first, determined I would just keep with my normal concept of taking the entire summer off. Yet, the reasons for taking a summer class quickly started to outweigh my reasons to not taking the course. As I am approaching my senior year, it is starting to become overwhelming how much and yet how little is left for me to do before I graduate. That pressure to be the student who graduates on the normal track, after just four years, is on my shoulders. By taking this class now during the summer, It frees up time during the next two semesters that I can use to focus on capstone and senior projects.

While you may not be planing to take summer classes, it is always important to remember that plans are always changing. It has always helped me to keep a list and plan of what classes I need to take each semester to graduate on time. It may help you to do the same, but do remember that time changes and it sometimes works out for the better if your plans don’t always go as you imagine.

Although at first glance WT may not seem like a big art college, or even having much to do with the arts. While it may not seem like it WTAMU does have an art department full of talented students (I may be bragging a little, since I am one of them!) Being in the art department, I have learned that there are a lot of art shows, and gallery openings in and around the Canyon/Amarillo area.

Every year seniors are able to put together a senior show which is displayed in one of WT’s two galleries. WTAMU actually has a gallery on campus in Mary Moody Northern Hall where students, faculty, and even guest artist hold shows. Just last week the art faculty held a show of their work, while this week a graduate student will be having his gallery opening. It’s an amazing space to see work created by fellow buffs while on your way to class! WT’s other gallery space is in Amarillo as a part of the Sunset Center. On the first Friday of every month Sunset Center holds an art walk where multiple artists get together to show and even sell their artwork. WT owns a gallery space here for students and faculty shows.

Once a year students from WT have the chance to get their artwork into an actually museum, the Amarillo Museum of Art. Each year the museum host the AC/WT Student/Faculty show displaying works from both Amarillo College and WTAMU students and faculty and displays in in a show for all of the public to see. The opening for this show happens to be this Friday, April 5th, so if you are in town you should swing by and take a look for yourself the type of artwork that WT students and teachers can produce!

It’s that time again to start picking and choosing classes for the next semester. When you are first starting out your freshman year it’s relatively easy to find classes that fit into your schedule. However, as you get closer to your senior year you start to experience frustration, angst, and anxiety over finding classes that fit into your schedule. Today was the day I went looking for classes to fill my next semester. I found all of the classes that are required for my major, which filled up a good portion of my schedule. However, I still have one core class, a science class, left to take. Finding a way to fit the science class into my schedule was certainly not an easy thing to do. Finding a class that fit into my schedule took a good 30 minutes of searching and checking to see which class would possibly fit with my other classes.

I ended up finding one class and lab that would meet my requirements and not overlap with my other classes: chemistry. This is not a class I was looking forward to, or even wanting to take, but it is the only one that fit into my schedule. It is important to keep track of what classes you are taking, and which classes you have left so you don’t get stuck in a class you don’t enjoy. Sometimes, no matter how on top of your schedule you are, you have to take a class just because it fits, not because you enjoy it. Sometimes you will end up in a class you don’t like, and there is not much you can do but suck it up and look to others for help, for at WT there will always be someone around to help you out.

Before I started college at WTAMU I always had dreams of traveling the world, but knew that I may never have the opportunity due to time and, more importantly, the cost. Even when starting at WTAMU I had heard about the study abroad office and opportunities, but still believed that it would never happen for me.

Until now.

This semester I have signed up for an honor’s seminar class that has a travel component to Scotland. For me it is really a dream come true, a dream that I never really believed would come true for me. This trip is a short, two week visit to Scotland with the class and professor. I’ve learned that the best time to travel really is in college because that is when the time and the cost are best. Most college students don’t have a family (husband or kid) that they need to worry about leaving behind, and there are many scholarships to help cover the cost. It will cost a lot less to travel with a class, than trying to travel on your own after college. Another way to really enjoy a foreign country is to spend a semester studying in the country. (and guess what, WT helps with that too!)

Don’t pass on this dream, just because you think it could never happen to you. Inform yourself, and look out for opportunities!

College is the time to experience new opportunities that otherwise might not be available to you. I’ve had a lot of opportunities thrown my way, but none were as exciting as signing up for a Honor’s seminar class that will travel to Scotland. The class doesn’t start until the spring semester and the trip to Scotland isn’t until May, but I am already preparing and planning! Being able to go overseas and visit different countries has always been a dream of mine; however, I never thought that I would be able to actually achieve that dream simply due to the cost of traveling. If it wasn’t for WTAMU and the Honor’s Program, I would never have been able to attend and afford this trip.

Seminar classes are required by all honor’s students, and there is normally at least one class offered a semester that has a travel component attached. Last semester a bunch of Honor’s students went to Costa Rica for about ten days and had an amazing trip. It’s not just the Honor’s program that allows students to travel however; there are classes in all different departments on campus that have the opportunity to travel abroad. The trip I will be taking to Scotland is part of an Art History focused class, which fits in well to my major of Graphic Design. The college of business is also offering a course that will be traveling to London this upcoming semester. Every Freshman has the opportunity to write a paper based on the readership novel and have the opportunity to travel to a country based on the novel they read. If you are unable to get into a class that travels, there is always the option to study abroad. You could visit or live in another country for up to a Semester or more.